When a connector is attached to ends of cables, the cables need to be aligned so as to facilitate connection work of the cables.
FIG. 1 illustrates the configuration described in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2017-27660 as a conventional example of a cable alignment component for aligning cables. A cable alignment component 10 is used to space out ground cables and coaxial cables and to connect these cables to electrodes provided on a substrate.
The cable alignment component 10 includes eight cable through holes 11 for inserting coaxial cables and two ground cable through holes 12 for inserting ground cables, and an opening portion 13 is formed in the middle of the through holes.
FIGS. 2 and 3A to 3D illustrate a state that the cable alignment component 10 is attached to a substrate 30. Coaxial cables 21 are respectively inserted into the cable through holes 11 and ground cables 22 are respectively inserted into the ground cable through holes 12. After that, an adhesive is injected into the opening portion 13 so as to fix the coaxial cables 21 and the ground cables 22. Further, termination processing is performed with respective to each of the coaxial cables 21 and the ground cables 22.
Eight electrodes 31 arranged in a row, a ground electrode 32, and two position reference portions 33 are formed on the substrate 30. The two position reference portions 33 are holes. The ground electrode 32 is a strip electrode and is disposed in parallel with the row of the electrodes 31.
The cable alignment component 10 is disposed on a position of an aligned component attachment portion 34 of the substrate 30. A recessed portion 14 is formed in the bottom portion of the cable alignment component 10. The bottom portion of the cable alignment component 10 is a portion which comes into contact with the aligned component attachment portion 34. Two position determining portions 15 which are projecting portions are formed on the cable alignment component 10. By inserting the position determining portions 15 into the position reference portions 33 respectively, the cable alignment component 10 is attached to a predetermined position of the substrate 30.
Each of conductive wires 22a of the ground cables 22 is soldered to the ground electrode 32. Each of outer conductors 21a of the coaxial cables 21 is also soldered to the ground electrode 32. With respect to each of the coaxial cables 21, each of central conductors 21b of the coaxial cable 21 is soldered to a corresponding one of the electrodes 31. Use of the cable alignment component 10 facilitates a process from a step for arranging coaxial cables 21 in a plane to a step for connecting the coaxial cables 21 to the electrodes 31 on the substrate 30.
In this example, the dimension in the vertical direction of the cable through hole 11 on the side of the electrode 31, where the vertical direction is the direction parallel to the normal direction of the substrate 30, is larger than the dimension in the vertical direction of the cable through hole 11 on the side opposite to the electrode 31. Therefore, despite the presence of the opening portion 13, insertion of the coaxial cables 21 into the cable through holes 11 is easy.
Incidentally, a connector can be attached also to an end of a cable which is neither a signal cable in which one conductive wire is coated nor a coaxial cable. For example, a connector can be attached also to an end of a cable in which one or more signal cables are shielded with a shielding material using metal foil (hereafter, this cable is referred to as a shielded cable).
Metal foil used for the shielding material of the shielded cable is, for example, aluminum foil or copper foil. The metal foil is formed on a film made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), for example. The shielding material has a tape shape. The shielding material is spirally wound around one or more signal cables. The signal cable included in the shielded cable is, for example, a twisted pair wire, a twin-coaxial wire, or a single signal cable. The metal foil of the shielding material may be connected to the ground or does not have to be connected.
When a connector is attached to ends of cables (here, at least one of the cables is a shielded cable), the following problems (1) and (2) arise in the case where the cable alignment component 10 of related art is used for aligning the cables.
(1) When the signal cable in the shielded cable is attached to the cable alignment component 10 with the shielding material peeled off, shielding performance is deteriorated because there is a part with no shielding material in the entire length of the opening portion 13 and the cable through holes 11.
(2) When the shielded cable is inserted into the cable through hole 11 in a manner to be coated with the shielding material, deterioration of the shielding performance can be avoided. However, it is difficult to insert the shielded cable into the cable through hole 11 with the tape-shaped shielding material wound, requiring a lot of man-hour. In addition, peeling of the shielding material starts from a portion where the shielding material collides with an entrance of the cable through hole 11 and thus, a defect of a harness product is generated.